Analysis of Flapping Wings Micro Air Vehicle

Abstract

Flapping Wings Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are incredible flyers. It is evident from the literature that flapping wings micro air vehicles have higher lift to drag ratio and higher power to weight ratio. Current study aims to dug in the effects of flapping frequency, flapping angle, and velocity and in phase verses out of phase motion of Fore and Hindwings on the basic aerodynamic coefficients. Numerical Simulations in ANSYS Fluent have been performed on the approximate 3D CAD Model of Dragonfly made in SolidWorks. The results show that L/D ratio is maximum for the cases with Low Velocities, Higher Flapping Frequencies and Higher Flapping Angles. L/D Ratio for In phase motion of wings at low velocity is higher and higher for Out of phase motion at high velocity provided same Flapping Frequency, and Flapping Angle. L/D ratio is higher for 25° Flapping Angle/Angle of Attack for most cases.